“Woman, that was an offer.”
Again, I was confused.
“What?” I asked.
“Got a brain, I can use it,” Deacon answered. “You do what you do day to day. It’s your life. You’re up to your neck in it. Can get mired in that, unless you got someone to kick ideas around with. Since I got a brain, and you got me, that someone is me.”
The feeling of heady warmth that gave me was just overwhelming. So much so I couldn’t speak.
“Woman, you there?” he called.
“Yes, honey,” I forced out and kept doing it. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll take you up on it. I just hope I make it so you don’t regret it.”
“How would that happen?” he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed, which I found unbelievably sweet.
But still.
“You remember Grant?” I inquired.
“Who?”
“Grant. My boyfriend when I, uh…first met you.”
“Lazy fuck,” he stated, paused, then said before I could confirm, “Stupid fuck.”
“Yeah,” I replied, smiling. “Him.”
“I remember.”
“Well, my dream, this dream that transformed when I found these cabins, wasn’t being here doing it alone. I actually thought most of the fun would be being here, taking care of these cabins, and doing it together, at the time with Grant. He didn’t agree. His fun came a different way. The weight of the work, and me, ended up too much.”
“Cassie,” he said quietly. “Respect, but you two were too young to take that on. Man his age back then, all he wants is to get drunk and do it findin’ someone who’ll give him a blowjob after he’s done gettin’ shitfaced.”
This was absolutely true.
“Sayin’ that,” Deacon went on, “all a man’s gotta do is look at you, any age he is, and know he struck gold and has to get his shit together to keep it shiny, but more, keep it his. But he didn’t just look at you, he knew you, and doin’ that, no excuse for bein’ the way he was.”
The warmth I got from that settled so deep, I could ride it for weeks in the Arctic with not even a blanket.
“What I’m sayin’ is,” Deacon kept on quietly, “you are not a weight. Those cabins aren’t. Life isn’t. It’s just what it is. It’s part of livin’. It’s part of bein’ together. If it matters, if it’s good, nothin’ weighs it down.”
“I really wish you were here right now,” I blurted, and it was the truth, mostly because I wanted to kiss him and do it hard.
It was then Deacon said nothing.
This lasted some time, so I called, “Deacon?”
“Same here, Cassie.”
He wished he was with me.
And that felt warm too.
Needless to say, after that conversation, I thought we could do it, Deacon taking off, me staying home, us connecting from afar, learning about each other, helping what we had to grow, making it good, then connecting when he got back.
That was, until he left again. And when he did, he never picked up when I called and only twice phoned me back. These were short calls that lasted less than a minute and mostly were him saying he got my calls and couldn’t talk, but he’d call when he could.
But he never did.
And then it began to feel weird, me calling him a couple times a day so he’d see my number on his history and know I was thinking about him, wanting to speak with him, wanting to connect, but he never connected.
Then it didn’t feel weird, it felt humiliating, like I was the girl the guy picked up, had a good time with, thought it might be worth working at, then found she was needy and grasping. Calling all the time. Wanting to connect. Thinking about him way too much, as in creepy-much. All this until it was time to shut it down and shut her out because she was a creepy, stalker freak.
That didn’t feel good so I quit calling, hoping if I did, he’d call.
He didn’t.
He’d been gone nearly five weeks. And of that five weeks, I hadn’t heard from him in four, and hadn’t phoned him in three.
I didn’t know Deacon very well but in the times I was with him, the Deacon I thought I was coming to know wouldn’t leave me hanging for three weeks.
Unless he was going to leave me hanging forever.
Which I had no choice but to assume he was doing. Three weeks was a long time. His last “job” only lasted a week. This one was five. He had to be done with the job by now and moving on.
Moving on.
I just couldn’t believe he was doing it. Not without saying something. He didn’t have to come to Glacier Lily and lay it out for me. In fact, I was glad he didn’t.
But leaving me hanging?
Forever?
That didn’t seem very Deacon.
Which was another reminder that I didn’t know Deacon. I didn’t know what he did for a living. I didn’t know his full name. I didn’t know where he came from or how he became the man he was.
I knew he was thirty-eight, had slept with that same amount of women, (well, with me, one more), he was mellow, didn’t talk much, was great in bed, liked my cooking…
And that was all I knew.
This put me in a bad mood. A bad mood where I sat on my porch in the rain (though I’d do that anyway) staring at the trees, trying not to make a big deal of this. A hot guy, great sex, a feeling of hope it was the start of something beautiful, something that could be forever—women got that feeling all the time and found they were wrong.
I tried to make it that simple.
But I knew it wasn’t that simple.
I was staving off heartbreak…again. Doing it with the impending official adoption of the dog Deacon bought for me. I had pictures. The breeders e-mailed them to me weekly—the puppies rolling around, nursing from their momma, growing up, and playing.
I was in love with all of them and had no idea how I would choose when the time came two weeks from then when I’d have to.
I also had no idea how I would claim and care for a dog that would forever remind me of Deacon.
I closed my eyes tight on that thought, fighting the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me, and not in a warm way. In a devastated, I’m-an-idiot, I’d-picked-the-wrong-guy, when-was-I-gonna-learn way.
But I opened them when I heard the growl of an engine through the patter of rain.
I turned my head right to see who was there, and when I saw the rain slicked black Suburban through the gray dusk, I quit breathing.
I started again but only to do it erratically as I watched the driver’s side door open and Deacon unfold his long frame from the seat. I heard the door slam and remained still, my eyes on him negotiating the trees at the side of my house as he stalked to the porch.
My breath caught again when he arrived at the porch and I could see his eyes pinned to me, his face blank, the mask returned (not a good sign), but there was no escaping the heaviness that descended from whatever it was that was emanating from him.
This could have been why I couldn’t move.
Deacon could move. He put his hands to the porch railing, and even though the porch (and definitely the railing) was elevated several feet from the ground, he hauled himself up and threw his body over the rail, his boots hitting the deck with a definitive thud.
At this miraculous display of upper body strength, I swallowed a gasp.
I had no idea what he was doing there, and even if his expression was giving me nothing, I still understood from somewhere deep he didn’t want to be there.
But he was.
And I didn’t get that.
Though maybe I did. Maybe I was right. Maybe it was Deacon’s time to say good-bye, face to face.
Suddenly, I wished he’d left me hanging.
He stared down at me and I still didn’t move. Just had my neck twisted, my head tipped back, because his unfathomable eyes were locked to mine in a way I couldn’t escape.
“Thought you were more woman than any woman I’d met,” he declared, his voice low but cold, a voic
e I had for six years. A voice I thought was gone forever.
A voice it was a blow that hurt like a bitch to have back.
It was also a bizarre opening.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“A woman who’s any woman at all, she wants shot of a man, she’s got the guts to tell him.”
I stared in disbelief.
What did he just say?
Shot of a man?
Before I could ask, Deacon kept talking
“You don’t have that and I should let you make that play. But what you gave me, Cassidy, not gonna let you make that play. So you want shot of me, I’m standin’ right here. Now you say the words.”
“Are you crazy?” I whispered, knowing he was because there was no way in hell he could think I was shot of him.
Him shot of me, yes.
Me shot of him…
Absolutely not.
“You quit callin’,” he stated.
I finally moved, turning in my seat and keeping my eyes glued to his.
“You did too.”
“I was workin’,” he clipped.
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “For weeks, without a moment to phone just to say hey?”
“For weeks, without a moment to phone and say hey,” he confirmed, his words still terse.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Seriously,” he answered shortly and kept going. “Situation was not good. It was intense. And there were people there I did not know, I did not like, and I did not trust. No way in fuck I’m gonna take a call and expose shit to those fuckers. And no way I could take a call from you and not expose you mean somethin’ to me. Since I was with them practically twenty-four fuckin’ seven, I didn’t take a call and I didn’t make a call. Told you, I would not put you in danger. That world I live in, Cassidy, it does not exist for you and by that I mean you don’t know that world and that world does not know you.”
This made some sense, and some of it was very sweet.
However.
“So what’s that mean, Deacon?” I asked. “Incommunicado for weeks with no idea when that incommunicado will end?”
“Fuck no,” he returned. “It means you phone me so I know you’re good and you’re thinkin’ of me.”
Suddenly, I was over my shock he was there and this was because I was pissed.
“So I sit at home and give you that and I get nothing?” I pushed.
“You get knowin’ it’s good for me that I know I’m on your mind.”
I had to admit, that would be a nice thing to give.
But when there’s give, there should be get.
“And what do I get?”
“Woman, if you don’t already know that you’ve been on my mind every day for the last six years, I got no clue how to communicate that to you. Now that I’ve had you, that shit has not changed. It’s just got worse.”
My back straightened and I started glaring. “Worse?”
“Worse,” he confirmed on a downward jerk of his chin. “Now it’s not every day. It’s every hour. I don’t fight it, every minute. Fuck, every second, I don’t keep it in check. Every second, I’m thinkin’ of you, thinkin’ of gettin’ shit done, but only so I can get back to you.”
That was very, very sweet.
I was still pissed.
And this was because I got nothing from him, not one thing for a month!
“You didn’t tell me that, Deacon.”
“I fuckin’ did, Cassidy.”
“When?” I snapped.
He leaned toward me and shot back, “Every moment I was with you.”
I drew in a sharp breath.
Because in that instant, I knew he was right.
“You’re a vulnerability,” he ground out. “My vulnerability. I have no vulnerabilities. I spent years shavin’ every last one away from me so there was nothin’ left. Now I got one, a big one, and I do not give one fuck as long as she’s in Colorado, sittin’ on her porch, waitin’ for me to get back.”
Oh my God.
“Deacon,” I whispered, but got no further because he kept going.
“But I can’t know she’s doin’ that if she doesn’t,” he leaned into me again, “phone me.”
“What if I need you?” I asked softly, his words making me no longer pissed.
“Then you phone. You hang up. You phone again. You hang up. And you phone again. You keep phonin’, Cassidy, I’ll know I’m not just on your mind, I’m needed. And I’ll phone back. But I’ll do it on my way to you.”
Oh yes.
I was no longer pissed, like at all.
It was then I stood and faced him, saying in a calming voice, “I couldn’t know this, honey.”
“Right. Then I’ll educate you,” he returned, his words still clipped, showing he could definitely get annoyed. “Those five men you had, not one of them was a man like me. A man like me, Cassidy, does not sit on a fuckin’ chair on a fuckin’ porch by a fuckin’ river in the fuckin’ Colorado Mountains and tell a woman he wants to be sittin’ right there beside her when he’s eighty if he does not mean that shit.”
I felt my chin go back into my neck as I held his gaze, doing this to fight back the emotion his words rocketed through me.
Once I succeeded, I suggested, “Maybe we should get a system down.”
The mask slipped but only for his face to darken on the words, “You’re not shot of me?”
“Of course not,” I answered. “I just…you didn’t phone back so I thought you were shot of me.”
“Here,” he growled and I blinked.
“Deacon, I’m not a big fan of—”
“Future,” he cut me off. “Assert your feminism when I’m not three seconds away from fuckin’ you on your porch. I come to you, that’s gonna happen. You come to me, maybe it won’t.”
Maybe?
I didn’t ask that.
I asked, “So if you get your way and I come to you, you can miraculously control your base instincts?”
His reply?
“One.”
My body jerked and my brows shot together as the meaning of that word hit me.
“Are you counting down—?”
“Two.”
I planted my hands on my hips.
“You are!” I cried angrily. “You’re counting—”
“Fuck it,” he muttered, took two long strides, and I was in his arms.
Not only in his arms but his mouth was on mine and his tongue was sweeping inside.
That was when he was in my arms, seeing as I’d wrapped them around his shoulders.
The kiss was hard, it was heated, it was hungry, it was long, and it was beautiful.
Deacon ended it by shoving his face in my neck, his hand cupping the back of my head, guiding my face into his neck, his other arm holding me tight to his body.
As for me, I had one arm around his shoulders, fingers in his hair, one arm around him, forearm angled up his back.
I held tight too.
“Missed you,” I whispered into his skin.
Deacon didn’t reply, but he did. And he did by squeezing me so hard, his fingers digging into my scalp, I found it difficult to breath.
He released the pressure but still held me snug to his frame.
I turned my head and asked against the hinge of his jaw, “Have you had dinner?”
“Baby,” he replied, and my insides melted and that was even before he got to the good part. “You think, I got that job done, I stopped to eat on my way to you?”
It was my turn to reply nonverbally and I did this by clutching him even tighter.
“Feed me,” he ordered into my neck. “Then I’ll fuck you.”
That was definitely a deal.
Before I could share that with him, his head shot up, his neck twisting. I looked at his profile and saw his eyes narrowed.
Then he looked down at me. “Company.”
I stared at him for a beat before I looked around him, Deacon turning slightly, and I saw the nose of Milagros an
d Manuel’s SUV butting beyond my house.
“Your girl,” Deacon said, obviously having taken note of the car Milagros drove.
“She does this, pops by,” I told him. “She worries about me. So does Manuel.”
Deacon said nothing to this, just watched me say it, no chin dip or head tipping to share he heard it. Still, I knew he heard it.
Then, strangely, his gaze shifted high but toward the trees, yet I knew not to the trees. They were focused but unfocused. It was weird, I could tell he was taking note of something, I just didn’t know what.
I didn’t have the chance to ask before I heard Esteban, Milagros and Manuel’s oldest boy, shout, “Tía Cassidy! We have hot fudge!”
I stood still, letting Deacon guide this. Another thing it occurred to me right then that I knew about him was that he was observant. He had to know Milagros and I were close.
So he had to make the decision of what would come next.
He did.
And to my way of thinking, it was the right one.
He let me go, wrapped his big hand around mine (and when he did, my heart clutched because I missed feeling his hand around mine), and he pulled me toward the door, through it, the kitchen, and the foyer.
It was him who opened the front door but he did it hauling me to his side, hand still in mine.
I wanted to laugh at what happened next, I really did. But I loved Milagros and Manuel too much to do it.
This was because, the minute Deacon opened the door, Milagros’s head visibly jerked and then her body shot straight as a board, her eyes on Deacon. Manuel blinked and his mouth dropped open, his eyes also on Deacon.
As for the kids, three of them shouted varying things including, “Tía Cassidy!” “Hot Fudge!” and “I gotta go to the bathroom!”
Gerardo, their youngest, dashed straight through Deacon and my legs on his way to take care of business in the bathroom.
Esteban forged in toward our sides, which meant Deacon moved me back as he turned us toward the boy who was holding up a plastic bowl with a plastic top that held a melting hot fudge sundae.
“Mamá said you were sad so we got this for you,” he declared, thrusting the sundae toward me.
“Papá always gets me a sundae when I’m feeling sad,” Araceli, their second oldest daughter (third oldest child, with Silvia, at twelve, being first, Esteban, ten years old, second, Margarita, at six, fourth, Gerardo, four and a half, coming last). “It always makes me feel happy.”